Educators Told How To Lead The Way

November 15, 1998|By BRETT JOHNSON; Courant Staff Writer

WATERBURY — Emphasizing the need for dynamic leadership, New York City schools Chancellor Rudolph Crew attempted to inspire an auditorium full of school officials from across Connecticut Saturday to be daring in their approach to improving public education.

At the third annual convention sponsored by the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education and the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, Crew presented strategies to improve student performance and put children on a path of learning that could be applied to rural, suburban or urban school districts.

Before the crowd of more than 350 who attended the final morning session of the two-day conference at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, Crew, an African American with a cherubic face and warm smile, also reasserted his commitment to arts education and literacy.

``We have to inspire hope,'' Crew said. ``It represents a hill we have to climb. But we must show courage, passion, and work in strategic alliances.''

Crew heads the country's largest school district and oversees an operating budget of $8.8 billion. There are 669 elementary schools, 189 intermediate/junior high schools, 201 high schools, and 60 special education facilities in the city. It employs 66,000 teachers for about 1.1 million students, who speak 11 different languages.

Acknowledging that the level of resources and academic achievement is often unbalanced among schools in the same city, Crew said it is important to define clear standards of performance for students and faculty.

Much of the successful turnaround in New York City schools came after adoption of national education standards, Crew said. As a result, there is uniformity in what is taught in each grade level, he said.

Another way to better prepare students is to develop and implement lesson plans or other policies to help students meet those standards, whether through supporting arts education, improving technology in the classroom, or reducing classroom size, he said.

Also, the results have to be tracked and methods for using the data have to be followed to ensure continuous improvement, Crew added.

Though hesitant to give specific suggestions in regard to Hartford public schools, Crew said if there are good schools anywhere, then there can be good schools everywhere.

``Within urban centers, there are harder rows to hoe, longer lists of issues of more seemingly intractable problems,'' Crew said after his presentation. ``But the end zone is the end zone. The concern is, can children think, analyze, read, do mathematical computations in preparation for a world that's complex?''

For other officials, including Hartford's school trustees chairman, Robert Furek, the conference was a good venue to exchange ideas.

``We have to stay the course and keep executing our plan,'' Furek said. ``We will work to better communicate our progress with the public.''